Austrian, Yugoslav and UN military base, a peninsula of beautiful nature, a mysterious space craving freedom.The history of Prevlaka is, in fact, the history of Konavle and the Dubrovnik Republic.
On the 24th June 1419 the Dubrovnik Republic bought eastern Konavle: the area from the village Popoviæi towards the fort Soko, and in the east Sutorina and Cape Oštro, at the entrance of Boka Kotorska. Several years later the western part of Konavle was bought under the same conditions, and Prevlaka and Cape Oštro were registered in the archives and land registry records. The Dubrovnik Senate proclaimed Konavle its estate, and its native people became citizens of Dubrovnik.
The region stayed under the rule of the Dubrovnik Republic up until its demise in 1806 when the whole territory was taken over by Napoleon.
In 1813, after Napoleon left these parts, the territory of the Dubrovnik Republic, along with the rest of Dalmatia, came under the Austrian Empire. Because of its strategic position from which the entrance and exit from the bay of Boka Kotorska is controlled, during the Austrian rule a military fort was built, which is, to this day, in very good condition.
With the downfall of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, Prevlaka, together with the rest of Konavle, became an integral part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and subsequently the new-founded state of Yugoslavia after the Second World War. The Yugoslav army built a strong military base with underground passages, which was, for over fifty years, kept hidden from the public. The terror of the Yugoslav army in this, the most southern part of Croatia, reached its peak at the beginning of the 1990s when the entire Dubrovnik hinterland was occupied, including Prevlaka.
The Treaty signed in Geneva on the 30th September 1992 resulted in the Serb-Montenegrin forces leaving Konavle, after a one-year occupation. The last Yugoslav soldier left the Prevlaka peninsula on the 20th October 1992 at 8.30 p.m.
The OUN monitors took over Prevlaka on the 15th October 1992 and stayed an entire decade.
Finally, in 2001, Prevlaka came under the sovereign rule of the Republic of Croatia.
Little else remains in this, the most southern part of Croatia, but Park Prevlaka Ltd Konavle, in a jungle of macchia and thorn bushes, with a lack of infrastructure and destroyed buildings.
